Port-au-Prince, September 2 (RHC)-- As a counterpart to the publication in Haiti of a popular consultation, in which 68 percent of those polled supported the deployment of foreign troops, increasing numbers of popular organizations have expressed their opposition to it.
The position is set out in a lengthy document, the text of which was sent via email to Diario digital, based in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Opponents of the deployment claim that "foreign aid" in Haiti has not succeeded in creating a stable country, but rather has contributed to perpetuating some of the country's major problems.
It has been several decades since the political and economic chaos in Haiti has placed it at the center of world public opinion. The national alarm at the radicalization of its problems has made it possible for many countries and international institutions to become involved in the internal affairs of the country, with the consent of the Haitian governments themselves. These have been characterized by an excessive faith in international aid, as if it could provide magical and immediate solutions to their structural problems.
"We, Haitian signatory organizations, have received with astonishment the surprising news that a brotherly country like Kenya has accepted to lead against Haiti a US-UN occupation force disguised under the label of "multinational force" to better deceive the national and international public opinion, thus trying to hide the Machiavellian side of this criminal initiative," so begins the communiqué that the organizations opposed to the deployment have launched to the world.
They refer to the aid promised by the Kenyan government, which consists of 1000 security agents to help the Haitian police control armed gangs and other problems of insecurity, as well as police advice and training for Haitian police officers. This aid has been denounced by many social leaders as an order that the United States has given to Kenya, with the objective that the African country's forces represent the interests of the United States in Haiti.
"We would like to draw your attention to the involvement of the United States of America in the process of supplying arms and ammunition to the gangs that, without any problem, sow terror and death in Haiti. According to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) published in March 2023, the weapons and ammunition used by the gangs come in particular from the United States of America. The UNODC, in this same report, has confirmed an increase in illegal arms trafficking, mainly from the United States to Haiti, from the state of Florida", the communiqué denounced elsewhere.
The document then questions how effective an international force can be in combating armed gangs with solid and sustained logistics from the world's leading arms exporting country.
Haiti's failures have not occurred in a vacuum; they have been aided by the international community, which has injected $13 billion to help the country recover over the past decade. However, instead of the nation building that was supposed to be achieved with the money received, in recent years Haiti's institutions have become increasingly incapable of realizing their social purpose.
Among the organizations signing the communiqué are Alternative Socialiste (ASO), Jean Hénold Buteau et Jean-Paul Bastien, ALBA MOVIMIENTOS, Chapitre Haïti, Islanda Micheline Aduel, Michel Frantz Grandoit, Comité Démocratique Haïtien en Argentine / Henri Boisrolin, among many others.
